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FIFA makes shock move to publish report into 2018/2022 World Cup bidding race

German newspaper Bild were going to make more revelations about the Qatari bid, but the world governing body has decided to go public.

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FIFA has taken the dramatic step of publishing a controversial internal report into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process after it was leaked to a German newspaper this week.

Produced by FIFA’s chief ethics investigator Michael Garcia in 2014, the report’s contents have been kept secret until Bild obtained a copy and started publishing it on Tuesday.

The first set of revelations from the so-called Garcia report were not particularly new but still painted a bleak picture of the background to the infamous 2010 vote that gave the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

It said FIFA president Gianni Infantino and the current members of the FIFA Council had been calling for this move for over a year but had been blocked by the predecessors of Rojas and Skouris, Cornel Borbely and Hans-Joachim Eckert, who were unceremoniously replaced last month.

Borbely co-authored the report with Garcia and Eckert wrote a highly contentious 42-page “summary” of the report which Garcia immediately disowned, before resigning.

The successful bids by Russia and Qatar in 2010 have been mired in controversy ever since, particularly as the free-spending Gulf state beat powerful rivals to the 2022 prize, including the United States.

Michael Garcia
Michael Garcia’s report was summarised into 42 pages by Hans-Joachim Eckert (Walter Bieri/AP)

After repeated claims about corruption in the run-up to those votes, FIFA asked its then-chief ethics investigator Garcia to compile a report into the bidding nations for both World Cups.

Until Bild started to release extracts from his report on Monday, the world had only ever seen Eckert’s assessment of Garcia’s work.

Among the first stories revealed by Bild were claims that the Qataris flew three members of FIFA’s executive committee to a party in Rio on a private jet shortly before the vote, the Qatari bid used access to its state-of-the-art Aspire sports academy to influence voters and £1.6million was sent to a bank account belonging to the 10-year-old daughter of another ExCo voter.

Gianni Infantino
FIFA president Gianni Infantino wanted to publish the report over a year ago (Joe Giddens/PA)

The findings on Russia’s bid were relatively unspectacular, with no proof of any corrupt practice in the the process.

The 39-page Russian section, penned by Borbely alone after Garcia recused himself, makes four key conclusions alongside one notable mitigation.

Borbely asserts the investigation unearthed: no evidence of collusion of a Russian Bid with another bid committee or member association; no violation of FIFA Rules of Conduct on gifts, grant of benefits or development assistance; no undue influence exerted on FIFA ExCo Members in an attempt to secure votes.

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